Wings of the Walker - CoraLee June Page 0,191

his arms down with a belt.

"You know, I don't know his name? I've always called him Chef, and he's never corrected me. I've spent every day with him since Cavil bought me from Lackley," she whispered, and I snapped my head towards her in surprise. She once belonged to Lackley?

"I-I hope he’s of some use to you," she continued. Dominique kept creating verbal distance between her and the chef by saying he was nothing but a test subject, but the pain in her body language spoke differently. She wrapped her arms around her middle and bowed her head in defeat.

Maverick inspected the chef with a frown, and the hopelessness in his gaze made me sad.

"Dominique, the thing is..." Allaire began while coughing. I watched silently as he adjusted his collar and tried to breathe. "We aren’t nearly ready to test the cure, it could make his condition worse or cause him to experience more pain. We have at least three days of virtual trials to run. I don’t want to add to his turmoil." I remembered Josiah’s shaking frame in Lackley’s lab and shivered.

Dominique looked up at the ceiling then back down before putting her hands on her hips. "That seems to be a recurring theme—not being able to do anything," she said. Chef coughed and tried to sit up, but Maverick held him down.

"How long does he have, Mav?" I asked while taking another step back.

"I'm not sure. Could be hours, days. Everybody reacts to the mutation differently."

A slight hiss seeped out of chef’s mouth, and we all stared at his cracked, parted lips. Dominique leaned over to listen as he tried to whisper again. He pushed out the same hissing sound as Dominique strained to hear what he said.

"What did he say?" I asked, my loud voice breaking our intense observation of the chef and Dominique. I shivered while fighting back memories of the clinic and the Stonewell basement. The rejection, like influenza X, was a cruel way to die.

Eventually, Dominique straightened and rolled her shoulders back. For a brief moment she stared at Allaire, but her eyes lacked warmth. She wore an expression of cold resignation. She then let out a loud exhale before brushing a hand over chef’s forehead. "I'm so sorry."

With slumped shoulders, she made her way over to one of the soldiers that helped bring him here and paused. She didn't look him in the eye when she spoke. She just stood there, her head level with his shoulders as she faced the wall. "Kill him," she whispered to the soldier, causing everyone to break out in frantic panic.

The soldier didn't blink at the request. In one singular fluid movement, he unholstered Heat from his belt, aimed it at the chef, and squeezed the two side levers, releasing its blast of concentrated electricity. I threw my hands up to cover my eyes as Kemper gripped my shoulders. Dust hit my skin as a bright light bled through my eyelids. I coughed out bits of dust that hit my tongue as yelling broke out. There, on the table, the chef was gone, and all that was left of him was a pile of carbon.

"Why did you kill him?" Patrick screamed while rushing over to me. He kept his eyes on the murderous soldier while brushing debris from my shoulders.

Dominique took her index finger and ran it along her lips before inspecting the cellular dust that gathered on it. "Because he asked me to," she said simply before nodding at the soldiers and heading towards the exit.

“Wait!” I called out, despite warning looks from Maverick, Kemper and Patrick. Dominique stopped in her tracks and slowly turned so that she was facing us. The soldiers ignored me and continued marching out.

“Yes?”

“When did you live with Lackley?” I asked. I knew she was in a vulnerable state but didn’t care. Maybe she knew something—anything—that could help us get through this.

“I lived there for a couple years, yes,” Dominique explained before turning to leave again.

“Did you ever see anything strange?” I pushed. I knew she was at the breaking point. I felt the stress at the tip of her tongue.

“Strange? No. Cruelty wasn’t out of the ordinary. I saw men beg for their lives at his feet. I saw leaders of the empire grovel like dogs as he hoarded the vaccine.”

I pushed past the others, stepping in dust as it billowed up beneath my feet. I tried not to think of what composition of body parts made up the